Today, carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics materials, such as CFRP, are generally used for producing components which are lightweight but at the same time have a high mechanical loading capacity. In order to efficiently manufacture CFRP components having complex geometries, in this connection inter alia the AFP (automated fiber placement) method is used. In this case, narrow strips of carbon fibers are gradually laid beside and on top of one another on a base, by a laying head, and fixed in an appropriate manner. For this purpose, the laying head can be moved for example by a handling device, in particular a robot, in a fully automated manner along pre-programmed paths in space, at a plurality of degrees of freedom. Once the generally fully automated laying process is completed, the reinforcing fiber structure thus produced is preferably infiltrated with a thermosetting plastics material and cured. Alternatively, carbon fiber strips which are pre-impregnated with a thermosetting plastics material (prepregs) can also be laid by the laying head in a fully automated manner on a base, meaning that it is not necessary to fix the position of the dried carbon fiber strips or to subsequently infiltrate the strips with thermosetting plastics material.
A detector, arranged in the laying head, is used for quality assurance, which detector detects, in parallel with the laying process, the relative position of the carbon fiber strips to one another and searches for various laying errors and/or checks adherence to predetermined requirements. Laying errors of this kind may for example be excessive spacings between the carbon fiber strips or twisting of the carbon fiber strips. The data measured by the detector are elevation profiles. Certain types of errors, however, cannot be identified on the basis of elevation profiles alone. This is the case, for example, in the event of deviations from a predetermined target component geometry. The position or the spatial location of the measured elevation profiles must therefore be determined and if necessary taken into account by combining during evaluation.
The spatial position of the laying head can be determined by external systems. Thus, for example, a robot used for moving the laying head can output the position coordinates of the laying head. The exact position of the laser sensor and thus of the laser profile can then be determined by appropriate coordinate transformations and measurements. Alternatively, a laser tracker can also be used to determine the position of the laser sensor.
However, determining the position on the basis of data from external systems such as the robot used for moving the laying head is subject to a number of problems. It may thus be necessary to agree with the manufacturer to produce a compatible interface, although this is frequently undesirable for reasons of trade secrets or fails due to technical requirements such as the available resolution and accuracy. On the other hand, using laser trackers is usually too expensive.